[purrin]

Yeah, a modded Behringer DCX2496 can go from a POS to something pretty good too.

 

[purrin]

 
So my question is, in your opinion (and of course in anybody else's), should I jump the boat of this waiting game and go for something real (already available on the market), or I am really not missing that terribly much?

 
My approach is why wait if you can afford something nice now. Just do your homework first. There will always be something better coming along. If I'd waited for the supposed OR6 USB converter which should have been out a few months ago but is still not out now, I wouldn't have enjoyed what the OR5 has given me for nearly a year.

 

[magiccabbage]

   
My approach is why wait if you can afford something nice now. Just do your homework first. There will always be something better coming along. If I'd waited for the supposed OR6 USB converter which should have been out a few months ago but is still not out now, I wouldn't have enjoyed what the OR5 has given me for nearly a year.

I hope you do a review of the Schiit YGG when it comes out. 
 
The last time I spoke to you, you had not heard the Bryston BDA-2. By any chance have you gotten to hear it since then? 

 

[purrin]

Not yet. Sort of on hiatus and just coming back to causing trouble. Partners at my old firm threw me under the bus after seven loyal years. Moved to a different part of town and now working in the big corporate world. At least I get good benefits and I'm learning new stuff again.

 

[magiccabbage]

  Not yet. Sort of on hiatus and just coming back to causing trouble. Partners at my old firm threw me under the bus after seven loyal years. Moved to a different part of town and now working in the big corporate world. At least I get good benefits and I'm learning new stuff again.

Sometimes a change makes all the difference. Hope it goes well. I am still on a DAC hunt. I'm selling my WA2 and T1 next month. Im gonna use the money and get a DAC for when my Stratus comes towards the end of the summer. I'm hoping the new Shciit DAC will be out by then. 

 

[music_man]

that's funny you mention that. all behringer stuff is pos. some of it once modded are classic. I mean for studio use. on the other hand much of it is so bad you can't even get it apart. like glued in 12ax7's.

 

[JakeJack_2008]

  Provided you can get clean / sufficient power to the ODAC, I prefer the ODAC to the Modi. For example, I prefer the Modi from my laptop which seems to have crappy USB power. The ODAC sounded craptastic from my laptop. However the ODAC sounds great from my PC - a little better than the Modi. My PC seems to have a "real" USB port, or at least one with either sufficient juice or power quality.

 
Hi Purrin,
 
My ODAC sounds excellent from my modern Toshiba Satellite (the S-series, released June 2012), so the USB power is good
(how good?)  in this particular  case.
 
Anyway, one can use the ODAC with the Vaunix hub   (recommended by Currawong) or the iFi iUSB, and so on.
What about running the ODAC from good quality batteries - someone on this site  mentioned Clean Power batteries?
Just out of curiosity, would the ODAC benefit more from the Clean Power (or other good quality brands) batteries?
What are pros and cons in terms of the electric power quality of using batteries vs. dedicated power supplies (IFi iUSB, etc.)?
 
Thanx for reading.

 

[Sapientiam]

What's needed to improve the ODAC is cleaner power to the ES9023 chip itself. The fact that changing the USB power source changes the SQ says that the regulator on the board doesn't have enough filtering to deliver a clean supply - no surprise really as Lord Voldemort didn't fit the correct output capacitor for the Micrel regulator. Batteries certainly will help as they're not subject to common-mode noise - they have the very valuable quality of being perfectly isolated - but that's a different kind of improvement as it's primarily affecting the equipment the ODAC feeds into.

 

[music_man]

all these cheap dacs are like that. improve the psu and outputs and you have a good dac usually. of course you could just buy a good dac to begin with.

 

[Sapientiam]

There is a fairly hard limitation though - they can't be made better than the DAC chip they use, and for a cheap DAC they'll almost certainly use S-D type chips. TDA1543 is the exception rather than the rule in cheapo DACs and that's one of the poorest sounding multibit chips.

 

[TwoEars]

I would like to upset everyone (well, not really) and say that I personally don't like the idea of ranking dacs.
 
The name of the game is synergy and personal tastes.
 
An overly tubey amp may need a strident and even somewhat harch DAC to make the system work.
 
A harsh and lean amp may need a mellow rounded dac to make the system perform it's best.
 
Headphones are like tools, some tools are better than others. Some tools do many things while others are hammers and only do one thing well.
 
Amps are the same.... and so are dac's too when you think about it.
 
I'm not saying that a schiit loki can better than a PW mk2, because I don't think it can.
 
But there can be systems where an aggressive dac makes an otherwise sluggish amp pop into life and really shine.
 
To objectively say that this dac is better than that dac is to say that everyone has a reference system at home and that all the other components in the signal chain are dead neutral in character. Neither warm, nor cold, nor fast, nor slow.... just dead neutral.
 
I think we can all agree that such a system does not exist.
 
Synergy my friends.... it's all about synergy.

 

[Greed]

How astute of you.. I wonder how many times purrin will have to sing the same song. 

 

[magiccabbage]

  How astute of you.. I wonder how many times purrin will have to sing the same song. 

What do you mean? That purrin will have to keep explaining himself because of comments like the one above? 

 

[magiccabbage]

Purrin did say at the start - 

 These rankings are largely based on personal preference. They should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Tuco1965]

Salted DAC mmm